Club Lunch: Trade and Investment with China, and the Role of the United States

How can China truly open its economy? What role can Hong Kong play in strengthening U.S.-China trade? In recent weeks, China’s commercial practices and proposed U.S. trade policy actions have made headlines. U.S. Consul General Kurt Tong discussws these questions and the United States’ commitment to free and fair trade.

Kurt W. Tong is the Consul General representing the United States to Hong Kong and Macau. As Chief of Mission, Mr. Tong leads an interagency team that cooperates with the governments of Hong Kong and Macau in a variety of areas, in addition to providing consular services. Mr. Tong has been a diplomat since 1990, spending much of his career in Asia. Prior to his service in Hong Kong, Consul General Tong was the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs at the Department of State, the Deputy Chief of Mission and Chargé d’Affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, Japan, and the U.S. Ambassador for Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC). Mr. Tong has also served at the National Security Council, and at the U.S. Embassies in Seoul, Beijing, and Manila. Consul General Tong holds a B.A. from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, and studied economics at the U.S. Foreign Service Institute and Tokyo University.